(Closed) ceremony and reception on different dates?

what are your opinions on that subject? my fiance is from a different city, not too far away though. i was planning on having the ceremony in his hometown (on a saturday afternoon) and having the reception (the following friday) in my hometown. is that strange?

How far is "not far"? As a guest, I have to honestly say that I would be less than pleased to have to commit 2 weekend days to going to the "same" event. Would the guest list be the same to both events?

Honestly, I think it would make it difficult for guests with the events being almost a week apart like that. Think of OOT guests, I don’t think they would be willing to commit to both, but I’m sure would like to attend both.

I’ve had couples do this, but they were only having immediate family at the ceremony – like parents, grandparents, and siblings. Then a couple months later they had the reception. If you’re inviting everyone to the ceremony and everyone to the reception, I think people would be inclined to only go to one. Will either location be much of a drive for your guests? If you won’t have many people coming from a long way away, that might be a different story.

the two cities are three hours apart. here’s what i was planning on doing: of course, immediate family are invited to both the ceremony and reception. ceremony: mostly the groom’s family and friends. my immediate family and close friends. i was going to have a bbq at the groom’s parent’s house after the ceremony. reception: all my family and friends are invited. groom’s family is invited as well. and any other close friends who would be willing to make the trip. sorry if this is confusing. it was confusing for me to figure this out!

It sounds like what you’re really talking about is having one ceremony but two receptions, one immediately following the ceremony (the bbq) and one a week later in your hometown. I think this is totally legit. It has been discussed extensively on the boards. Try looking up "hometown reception" or "second reception" in the seach engine box at the top of the page.

In these situations usually the people who attend the second/hometown reception are not invited to the ceremony. Will that be the case for you? Will your extended family feel slighted because they were not invited to the ceremony but all of the groom’s family and friends were? If it were me it would feel a little unfair to have such an intentionally disproportionate attendance at the ceremony.

If you’re thinking of doing this to save people the drive, I think you may be making it more complicated than necessary. People are much more excited by the ceremony than the reception, so they will want to go to the ceremony, and as long as they’re there you should just have the reception then. Three hours is not too far of a drive for a wedding. You can still have the second hometown reception but as a way to invite people who were not invited to the ceremony (because they are only distantly connected to you) or for people who could not come to ceremony.